(Founder Stories) MakerBot’s Pettis: "We Are Going To See A Huge Amount Of Hardware Startups"

8 years

Chris Dixon heads down the homestretch of his Founder Stories interview with Bre Pettis and the two touch on the fact that the barriers to entry for founders foaming at the mouth to launch hardware startups are being washed away.

Pettis says, “we’re seeing this startup culture come into hardware, where normally this was just the realm of the really big companies who could afford to do this kind of R&D and development and I think in the next ten years we are going to see a huge amount of hardware startups.”

Speaking to the similarities of the respective startup sectors, Dixon says, “it used to cost 30 million [to launch a startup], you had to run a data center and do all these other things, and now you can do it on a couple thousand dollars and that sort of created a renaissance of, I think, internet startups. And it also allowed a new class of people who aren’t hypertechnical to do stuff.”

As evidence by the conversation above, getting in the game is getting easier—and if you’re looking to do so, Pettis offers this advice: “Make it so people can do things with your hardware that you don’t expect, leave openings, try and be future compatible. ”

The two finish up by turning the spotlight on the actual MakerBot and remove a freshly completed rocket ship from its innards—while also discussing the good luck charm that is the band, Daft Punk.

Make sure to watch the previous episodes in the Founder StoriesMakerBot series here and here, and past episodes of Founder Stories here.